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This year has been amazing for me. I never thought that I would be able to do things such as a drag force derivation, or transient analysis of circuits, but I proved myself wrong. Through hard work and a lot of time, I matured through this year into an independent student who has faith in his own intellectual abilities which can all be attributed to the workload of AP Physics C. I learned that it isn't bad to ask questions as long as you have tried your hardest and thought about it until you can

Well this is gonna be a hard one. In Kerbal Space Program, Physics is the name of the game. It is the most true to life space exploration simulation that is readily available to the public, but it still insanely fun to play. You control a whole space program, and decide everything that it does. You control the mission plans, creation of spacecraft, and the actual flight and maneuvers. The Physics engine in this game models real life down to the smallest details: drag, propulsion, center of mass,

In Call of Duty Black Ops 3, you are able to run on walls for a short period of time. Though this is unrealistic, humans are actually able to run vertically up walls for a quite impressive distance. This is due to the force of friction. When you make contact with the wall with your hands and feet, you push them downwards in order to imbalance the forces. If the force of friction is greater than the force of gravity, you will be propelled upward when you run up the wall. This means that the force

In Nightfire there is a rocket launcher that fires homing missiles. These missiles follow their target until they hit a surface and explode. How they do this is based off the principle that warm bodies emit infrared light, therefore if a rocket were to follow infrared emissions it would most likely be following a body. Homing missiles are so effective that 90% of all US air force losses can be attributed to them. In order to change directions mid flight, it adjusts the direction of its rear thru

In one of my favorite Gamecube games of all time, James Bond 007: Nightfire, you are able to choose from a multitude of characters to play as and complete missions with. One of these characters is names Oddjob, who is extremely short and wears a trademark black bowler hat. This hat will be the focus of my blog. In the game, you are able to take off your hat and throw it at enemies much like a Frisbee, but this isn't playing a game, it's to slice peoples heads off. The 2 reasons the hat is able t

Super Mario Strikers is a cartoon soccer game some will remember playing on their gamecube's or wii's which was extremely satisfying because of the unrealistic goals and crazy plays. However, there is one aspect of the game that is realistic and has physics behind it: The bicycle kick. The bicycle kick is an extremely hard and athletically demanding feat, but if performed correctly can stun your opponent and create insane velocity on a shot. A ball must be lobbed in the air to the person shootin

The Nuclear bomb is believe it or not one of the main weapons in Fallout 4, but ironically is also the cause of the game. The Physics behind Nuclear bombs is extremely complicated, but in this blog I will try to explain it as best as I can. The immense energy behind a nuclear explosion can be attributed to nuclear fission, which is the splitting of atoms. In a nukes case, it is most likely Uranium - 235. Two masses of highly pure Uranium 235 are positioned perfectly so that when they collide the

In Roller Coaster Tycoon, your main goal is to build an amusement park with the coolest rides to get the most profit possible. Your main weapon in your arsenal is the rollercoaster of course, which relies on a basic principle of physics to work. The carts are pulled up to the top of a hill by a chain system similar to that of a bike, and are then released at the top and fly down the hill at immense speeds. This is because of the law of conservation of energy. As the carts are pulled higher, thei

Fallout 4 is a survival open world game. In the game there is a weapon called the "Big Boy". This is a handheld mini nuke launcher. While this is impractical in real life, there is physics behind how the game makes it work. Since no heat or pressure can be applied to the nuke without it blowing up, the launcher uses springs and elastics to store energy and launch the nuke smoothly. This can be seen my the equation of Spring PE= 1/2kx^2, with k being the spring constant and x being the displaceme

In World of Tanks, you are the driver of a tank on a large battlefield. Your main weapon is your cannon, which fire shells. The games internal physics engine makes the shells obey the laws of projectile motion, giving them a parabolic flight path. Gravity pulls them down, and air resists their forward motion which is similar to my blog on the physics of sniping in Battlefield. Another aspect of physics in battlefield is the suspension the tank tracks have to prevent damage from falls. The longer

In Battlefront, the main infantry weapon is a gun that fires lasers. Though it would be amazing, this will most likely never be a reality because of a few properties of light: refraction and scattering. Light can bend, and will in foggy or rainy conditions. Also, it will disperse as it travels, reducing the intensity. Another reason why it is impractical is the energy requirements for a laser beam that can kill. To create a laser beam that is strong enough to kill, 24 Kg of batteries must be use

Besiege is a game where the object is to build siege engines to take down armies and castles. One extremely effective siege weapon is the catapult, which is loaded with physics. Catapults can be loaded with projectiles that when released are launched at extremely high speeds and over long distances. How a relatively small mechanism can create such large amounts of force and speed is similar in some ways to the crossbow, but different in other ways. With a bow, the string can be drawn back at dif

A game that me and my friends have been playing a lot recently is called Gang Beasts. It is an arena fighting game where the object is to be the last man standing. What makes it entertaining is that the characters that are fighting are rag-dolls, which means that you have little control over their bodies. They move fluidly and are not stiff, which is very entertaining to watch when it a fight to the death between 8 players. In order to get another player out, you have to punch and kick them unti

The NBA 2k series is undoubtedly one of if not the most popular sports series around. It is a basketball simulator, where physics governs all aspects of the game. One particular aspect of the game i would like to look at however is the crossover. In basketball, the crossover is a move where the ball is dribbled from one hand to the other very quickly in order to confuse a defender. Sometimes, a crossover is so effective and fast that the defender gets his "ankles broken" or falls over from the m

The Dark Souls series is known for being extremely difficult. This is because of the complexity of the combat and the strength of the enemies in the game. When fighting an enemy, the only way to dodge its weapon is to perform a tuck and roll. The tuck and roll is the core of all combat in Dark Souls. It gives you a small window of invincibility which can be used to re-position yourself behind an enemy or give you just enough time to drink a crucial health potion. At first glance however a tuck a

The Skate series has taken over skating video games. In Skate, you skate around town doing flips, grinds, and ride ramps doing cool grabs and holds. Behind all of the fancy tricks is a skateboard. Skateboards broken down simply are boards with 4 wheels, with each end bent up slightly. In this blog, i am going to break down the physics of a kick flip, and how it is possible. First, the skateboard gets into the air through an Ollie or bunny hop. Second, the skater will push on opposite sides of th

One mobile game has taken over IHS: Clash Royale. Most people either play it because the like it, or just simply have it on their phone because one of their friends made them download it. Regardless, one of the most controversial aspects of the game is filled with physics that is taken for granted. The X-Bow is a crossbow that fires huge arrows at outrageous speeds. The mystery behind a crossbow is how such a simple mechanism can create such speed and force behind an arrow. The answer is simple:

In arguably the greatest gaming series of all time, The Legend of Zelda, one of the core weapons is based solely off of physics: The boomerang. The boomerang is used to kill enemies, retrieve items and rupees, and best of all can be used infinitely due to the fact that it always comes back to you. The key to a boomerang returning to the thrower is a phenomenon known as gyroscopic procession. This is where one wing is moving through the air slightly faster than the other, creating unbalanced forc

In GTA V, physics is a large factor in almost every part of the game. One example is when driving cars in GTA, you can reach some fairly impressive speeds. If you get into a car and start driving immediately, your character doesn't put on a seat belt which is a recipe for disaster. If you crash while driving at an insane speed, you will fly through the windshield and out of the car. This is because of inertia. As everyone knows, inertia is a property of matter. It is a measure of a resistance to

The Battlefield series is widely known for being realistic, intense, and hardcore. Every single aspect of the game is impressively real, even down to how bullets behave when shot. Sniping is one of the most challenging aspects of the game due to the behavior of bullets. When shot, a bullet encounters air resistance and gravity, giving it a downward flight pattern. The air resists its forward motion, giving it a negative acceleration in the x direction, while gravity give the bullet a positive ac

The new Indie game "No Mans Sky" boasts a very impressive infinite galaxy full of planets, aliens, starships, and traders. The ships however travel at speeds which we humans have reached before. You may ask however, "How can an infinite universe even be skimmed if ships can only travel at relatively small sustained speeds?" This is a good question, and it can be answered by the fact that humans in "No Mans Sky" have developed the warp drive. This is a small piece of equipment that when activate

The "first" video game: Pong. Deceptively simple. Two paddles, and a ball in the middle that bounced back and forth. It is not simple for two reasons: First, whenever the ball strikes the paddle, its y component of speed remains the same but in an opposite direction, and the only way that the x component can change direction is when the ball hits the wall. This means that the world of pong is perfect, where both the paddles and ball are frictionless, and there is no air resistance. Also, when th

The once popular game "Portal" was set in a laboratory where the player used a special gun that shot portals in order to navigate obstacle courses. The gun shot 2 portals, a blue and an orange, that linked together. The player is then able to jump through the first portal and end up where the second one was shot, covering a huge distance. Even complex things such as jumping through the first portal, then firing the second portal immediately afterwards to then fall through the second and back int

In the popular soccer video game, FIFA, there are many important aspects of physics that are put into the game engine in order to create the most realistic experience possible. One example that has recently been implemented is the field being effected by the weather, which in turn effects the behavior of the ball. For example, when the weather is normal, the ball will roll at a normal speed along the field. However, when the weather is rainy the ball will roll especially fast due to the now lowe

In the new game, Mafia III you play as the African American protagonist Lincoln Clay in the racially tense 1968 south. In the prologue you rob a bank with a group of white men you believe to not be racist. After successfully robbing the bank, you and the white men return to a bar to unload the gold bars and celebrate your newfound wealth. The celebration is cut short for you however, because in the middle of a long cut scene one of your white partners pulls a gun from behind you and shoots you i

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